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The latest update as of September 23, 2026

TOP FUEL- Eliminations - Round ONE

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FUNNY CAR- Eliminations - Round ONE

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Much, much more to come! Stay tuned!

The latest update as of September12, 2026

We're back in action after a short "intermission", and are starting to post the Saturday photos and captions, then we'll move on to Friday's coverage. We will work our way forward as soon as we catch up with the first few days of the U.S. Nationals.

The latest update as of September 7, 2026

The website won't be updated for a while as I'm heading to the hospital as soon as this very short update is posted. A timeline for the resumption of "normal activities" is unknown at this point. As soon as we're able to get back to the keyboard we'll be back online.

The latest update as of September 6, 2026

Day Five of the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Eliminations Round #1

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TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Eliminations Round #1

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #4

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #4

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PLAYNHRA FUNNY CAR All-Star Callout - Eliminations - Round #2

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AA/FUEL ALTEREDS

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #5 (FINAL)

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #5 (FINAL)

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The latest update as of September 5, 2026

Day Four of the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals

Qualifying continued today for the PRO and Pro Sportsmsan racers, starting and ending with some of the sportsman categories. We're starting our coverage with the second round of Pro Mod racing, then going into Top Fuel, followed by Funny Car.

PRO MOD - Qualifying Session #2

(LEFT) Leading our coverage is Chip King in his throwback style entry, a 1970 Dodge Charger. Sitting in the 20th spot on the qualifying list following Friday's opening session, he pounded out a great 5.815 - 248.80 to vault all the way to the 6th rung on the ladder. With a bunch of the heavy hitters following him in the session, he ultimately landed in the 10th spot in the field when the round finished..

(RIGHT) former world champion (2023), Mike Castellana, charged off the line with the wheels up, before stopping the clocks with a 5.829 - 248.71 to grab the 6th spot in the qualifying order. That moved him up six positions from the first session.

(LEFT) Coming into the session, Lyle Barnett was in the #11 position with his earlier 5.873 - 246.30 effort, but he failed to improve in this second session. As soon as he left the starting line, severe tire shake forced a very early shutoff, resulting in an 11-second elapsed time.

(RIGHT) The Canadian favourite, Justin Bond, of Mission, BC, made a big jump of the list, from the #9 position, all the way to the top of the heap, with a very strong 5.747 - 252.95 pass. It was nearly a tenth quicker, and five miles per hour faster than his opening pass on Friday.

Closing out the round was Friday's top qualifier, "Trickie" Rickie Smith, as he nearly regained the top spot, just falling short of Justin Bond with a 5.762 - 250.78 in his nitrous assisted Ford Mustang.

TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #2

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #2

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #3

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Much , much more to come. Stay tuned!

The latest update as of September 4, 2026

Day Three of the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals

Today is the first day of the PRO and Pro Sportsman racers, and they are facing some seriously bad atmospheric conditions, with density altitude readings well over 4000 ft. There's been a number of misses and too many hits for the Top Alcohol racers. In the first session of Funny Car, only five of the 15 cars ran in the 5-second zone, with Shane Westerfield at the top of the list with a decent 5.565 - 262.39. From there on, there were a pair of 5.60's and a pair of 5.70's, before the bottom dropped out with #6 (Phil Esz) running only 6.910. The second time around wasn't much better as Bob McCosh joined Westerfield in the 5.50's, with a solid 5.596 - 260.56, but the e.t.'s dropped off badly after that.

Most shocking of all was the back-to-back misses by the top two racers in the points standings, as Sean Bellemeur and Doug Gordon had best numbers in the 8's (Bellemeur) and 9's (Gordon>. With the final qualifying session scheduled for tomorrow morning, with temperatures forecast to be nearly 10 degrees cooler than today's seltering conditions there's some much better numbers expected from the "Top Guns".. The alcohol dragsters looked better by comparison, with four cars in the 5.30's and four more in the 5.40's, led by Richie Crampton at 5.302 - 270.16. In all, there were 12 of the 17 cars competing in the 5-second zone. There's definitely a lot of room for improvement in the final qualifying session.

Sox & Martin HEMI Challenge - Eliminations - Round #1

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TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Round #1

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TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Round #1

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TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Round #2

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TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Round #2

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PRO STOCK - Qualifying Round #1

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AA/FUEL ALTERED - Exhibition

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AA?FUEL DRAGSTER - Exhibition

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #1

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The latest update as of September 4, 2026

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - Mo-Kan Dragway (Asbury, MO)

The U.S. Nationals isn't the only event running weekend, as the Funny Car Chaos crew is assembled at "Smokin'" Mo-Kan Dragway for the penultiamate event on the 2026 calendar. We've got our intrepid road warrior, BIG Bob Snyder, on hand to provide us with lots of photos from the race. With 32 cars pre-entered, it's guaranteed to be quite a show.We're not sure at this .point whether it's going to be four fields (A,B,C,D) or just three fields. Firday night qualifying is underway as this report is being written. Details to follow tomorrow morning.

UPDATE after the first qualifying session: With only 26 cars recording an e.t., it's looking like a three field event. Leading the way was points leader (who else?) Keith XZimmerer, with an excellent 3.746 - 201.97, witjh 2022 series champion Kirk Williams close behind with a very good 3.765 - 202.16 effort. The "A" field was tightly bunched between Zimmerer and #8 Jade Cook at 4.005 - 177.30. The second (final) qualifying session is underway but we'll have to post the results - and hopefully some pictures - tomorrow morning.

The latest update as of September 3, 2026

Day Two of the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals

After a full day of qualifying action, we've received our first batch of photos, courtesy of our Colorado correspondent Dale Fackler. There's heaps more coming over the next five days but this small sample is all that we've got time for this evening.

(LEFT) In the near lane, Glenn Briglio ran nearly one second under his I/SA index, clocking in at 11.33 in his '69 Camaro. On the far side, Katie Stepanek ran just a little quicker with a 11.271 against the 12.30 index.

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The latest update as of August 29, 2026

Central Region event at Beech Bend Raceway

Bridging the gap between the NHRA Brainerd Nationals and the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals, is the second to alst Central Region event of the 2026 season. With the finish line of the season championships in the Top Alcohol categories within sight, it could be expected that there would be a healthy turnout of racers looking to maximize their regional point totals. To this point, only one Top Alcohol Dragster racer, Jamie Noonan, has competed at the maximum five points earning events. And no one in the Top Alcohol Funny Car class has come close to that number. While a racer can attend more than five events in a season, only the best three out of five can count towards their point total.

Knowing that just two regional and five national events are remaining on the schedule, I was fully expecting a large turnout of racers in both alcohol classes. That certainly wasn't the case in yesterday's only qualifying session, as only four dragsters, and four funny cars made an attempt. Today's first, of two, sessions saw the numbers grow by one in each category, but that still fell well short of expectations. It's interesting to note that only two of the Top Ten racers in TA/Dragster, Jackie Fricke and Melanie Johnson, and only one of the Top Ten in TA/Funny Car, Bob McCosh Jr., are competing at Beech Bend.

We'll update this report later today after the final qualifying sessions, and produce updated championship standings for both alcohol categories following tomorrow's eliminations. Then it's onward to the 72nd annual Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park next week for six days of jam-packed action at the original NHRA National event, which dates back to it's first iteration in 1955 at Great Bend ,KS.

The top two qualifiers held on to their positions, with Melanie Johnson earning a forst round bye, while Jackie Fricke has to face rookie A/FD driverJennifer Wiens, and Jared Dreher will face Mitch Kalitta While Kalitta is only competing in his second NHRA race, he has a very good Randy Meyer car under him, and has received some excellent tutelage from his father, Doug Kalitta.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have today, and tomorrow is used up with getting our home ready for an open house. Then we're off to celebrate my wife's birthday with our friends and neighbours. More news on Monday.

The latest update as of August 28, 2026

The BIG GO is almost here!

Some of the largest fields in recent memory in the nitro classes are already pre-entered. 22 Top Fuel cars, and 24 Funny Cars are on the lists for what should be an incredible series of performances spread across five qualifying sessions. The other PRO cartegories, Pro Stock car, and motorcycle are nearly as full, with 20 Pro Stocks on the list, and 18 Motorcycles entered. Below them are full fields of Pro Mods (19), and Top Alcohol Dragsters (16). Falling short of a full house are the Top Alcohol Funny Cars, with just 13 entrants, and with only one buiness day remaining before entries close, it's highly unlikely that number will grow. However, that number is tied with Brainerd as the best turnout at an NHRA national event in 2026, and aside from the full field of 16 at the fall race in Las Vegas in 2025, .it's tied for the best competitor numbers of the past two seasons.

We won't go into a lengthy editorial today on the "free fall" in racer participation in TA/Funny Car, but it's a subject that is on our agenda. Next up is the current Top Ten standings in the alcohol classes.

The latest update as of August 21, 2026

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR

After a few test sessions that resulted in e.t.'s in the 5.60's, the Del Worsham-owned, Jacob Slater-driven Funny Car laid a literal BOMB on all the other racers in the class. On the team's first qualifying run, in Slater's first competition run, the car shook a little off the line, then pciced up steam and ignited the scoreboards with a 5.589 - 282.54. While the e.t. wasn't earth shattering, the speed was the fastest ever recorded in the class. But the most striking part of the timeslip was that the car picked up more than 70 mph(!) from half track to the finish line.

It goes without saying that an awful lot of eyes were watching to see if they could back it up. They certainly did - and then some - as a 5.563 - 286.68 blew up the coreboard. The e.t. was only good for the #6 qualifying spot, but the speed obliterated the record by more than FIVE mph! And the speed increased by 72.6 mph from the 660' mark to the finish line. While they're making big top end charges, there were still five blown alky cars ahead of them on the qualifying sheet, with Victoria, BC's Stan Sipos, tuned by fellow Canadian Les Davenport, on top of the field with a very good 5.514 - 264.80 in the second session. Close behind are all the "usual suspects", such as Doug Gordon (#2), Sean Bellemeur - in a brand new car (with the same blown alky combo) - sitting third on the list. Just a few ticks behind them are Bob McCosh #4 and Annie Whiteley in the #5 spot. With one more qualifying session tomorrow morning, those positions could change.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER

With a full 16-car field - at least on paper - the dragsters had some hits, and a few misses in the first qualifying session. Among the misses was the "missing in action" unique entry of Minnesota's Dean Dubbin, as he planned to drive his "Funster" for the first time in competition. It combines a Funny Car back half, and a dragster front half, with the engine sitting in front of the driver in the 250' wheelbase creation of Texas chassis builder/racer Chase Copeland. The car made a cameo appearance at last year's NHRA Texas all Nationals, with Copeland in the seat, but only made one unsucessful qualifying pass before going in the trailer. There's an interesting story about it on the Drag Illustrated website, titled Dubbin Motorsports Set to Debut the "Funster" In Top Alcohol Dragster at Brainerd.

In on-track action, the two quickest and fastest blown alcohol dragsters on the planet. Shawn Cowie (two-time defending World Champion, and Joey Severance (FIVE time World Champion), are in attendance. Sitting atop the qualifying list is Cowie with a 5.211 - 277.60 blast in the first session. Closest to him is the Winnipeg, MB entry of Doug Doucette, with former world champ Alan Bradshaw (Odessa, TX) at the controls. Further down the list is another Manitoba car, owned by Cliff Bakx, with North Dakota's Todd Bruce at the controls. Just for good measure, there's another Canuck car in the field, with Mike Quayle (Reed Deer, AB), making a full quarter of the field hailing from north of the border.

As the season nears the "stretch run", with only three regional, and five national events remaining after this weekend, the pressure is on for everyone chasing the points leader, Jamie Noonan, with his three closest challengers at Brainerd, and a total of six of the Top Ten racers in the class in attendance. With a 133-point lead over closest pursuer, Joey Severance, Noonan sits in a commanding position, and the defending champion, Shawn Cowie, more than 200 points in arrears. Cowie does have two national and one regional events in hand, but needs some late round finishes, and preferably, wns to close the large gap. The last few months of the 2026 season will definitely be interesting in the dragster class.

There's much more news to come, but not enough time to report it this evening. Tune in again tomorrow for more updates on the event, including a look at the PRO classes as they near the end of the "Regular" season..

The latest update as of August 18, 2026

Following a three week hiatus, the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series roars back into action at Brainerd International Raceway (Brainerd, MN)with the 44th annual Brainerd Nationals. The PRO categores will feature a full field in Top Fuel, an almost full (15 entries) in Funny Car, and 17 Pro Stock cars. Top Alcohol Dragster is full, with 16 cars entered, and somewhat surprisingly, Top Alcohol Funny Car has 13 entries, the most since the fall race at Las Vegas last October. Incidentally, that was the only full field of alky floppers for the 2025 season, and a dramatic decrease from the TEN 16-car fields in the 2024 season.

Qualifying gets underway on Thursday with Sportsman qualifying, followed by all the PRO and Pro Sportsman categories on Friday. The final qualifying sessions will be on Saturday, and the first round of eliminations for the Top Alcohol cars will be run in the late afernoon. Then it's the "Big Show" on Sunday with final eliminations in all categories. While we won't have a photographer at the event, we will be filing reports throughout the weekend and a full wrap-up early next week.

Much closer to home is one of the most spectacular events of the entire season at Mission Raceway Park (Mission, BC). The feature will be FIVE Jet Cars, comprised of three Funny Cars, a Jet Dragster, and a Jet Truck. Supporting that feature group will be AA/Fuel Altereds, four of them I think, Pro Mods, Outlaw X275 cars, and Nitro Harleys. And making a special guest appearance is the AA/Fuel Dragster of Victoria, BC's Phil Ruskowski, who didn't get a chance to test his new combination at the rained out Langley Loafers event at the beginning of the month.

I don't want to jinx this race by mentioning the weather forecast.... which starts off with warm temps on Thursday, continues through Friday.... then it looks like rain most of Saturday. With rain continuing until Sunday morning, then drying in the afternoon, thee is a chance that it will be the rain date for Saturday.. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the weather gods don't wipe out another major event at Mission. We'll bring updates on the weather, and if the weather holds, we hope to see some great photos from old friend - well he's not as old as me - Larry Pfister.

The latest update as of August 1, 2026

The third to last event for the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series "regular" season, with just Brainerd (NHRA Brainered Nationals) and Indy (Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals) left before the points reset prior to the Countdown To The Championship. In the PRO categories there were almost all full fields, with the lone exception of Top Fuel, as the entry list fell one short. In the alcohol ranks, the numbers weren't as good as the Funny Car field had just five cars, while the Dragster contingent numbered an even dozen. The sportsman categories were well attended, with even Comp Eliminator boasting 13 cars. Who said that Comp was dead?

Unfortunately we don't have any photos from the event, as in years past, when Larry Pfister attended last year, and your webmaster (Bob Wilson), made the short journey south in 2024. We'll have a quick recap and some photos "borrowed" from Facebook to provide at least a little colour to our report. Stay tuned for it.... and many MANY more topics that have developed over the past month. IHRA, Funny Car Chaos, Nitro Chaos, etc. etc.

The latest update as of July 24, 2026

The 37th annual Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals starts in less than 24 hours at Pacific Raceways

Qualifying is underwasy at Pacific Raceways and the Top Alcohol classes are in the staging lanes waiting for their first of two sessions today. Neither class has a full 16-car field, but the Dragsters are much more abundant, with 12 cars, while the Funny Car entires can literally be counted on one hand as there's just five entries.

Looking at the number of Top Alcohol Dragster entries at the previous six national events in 2026, there's been two full fields, one of which had a pair of alternates. The other races had numbers ranging from 15 (Gatorationals) to 12 (Potomac), the same number that are ateattle. The sitation on the other side of the pits (Top Alcohol Funny Car) is approaching dire straits, with the largest turnout of cars being the 10 entries at Chicago. The two lowest car counts - so far - are at Gainesville and Seattle with just five cars. All in, the average number of entries at each race is 7.4, and the total number of racers with at least one national event attended are 27. The dragster comtingent is 42, with the majority being A/Fuel Dragsters (31) versus the traditional blown alky variety with just 11.drivers.

The latest update as of July 23, 2026

The 37th annual Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals starts in less than 24 hours at Pacific Raceways

With only three events left in the NHRA "Regular Season" before the Countdown To The Championship begins, it's imperative for drivers contending for their respective "championships" to either hold their lead, or close the gap to the leaders. In TOP FUEL, it's down to a 2-car race, with both drivers, Shawn Langdon, and Doug Kalitta coming from the Kalitta Motorsports camp. Almost mathematically eliminated in third place is Leah Pruett, and below her there's no one in the hunt.

FUNNY CAR is a tighter situation, with the top four drivers bunched in a group with barely 100 points separating #1 Ron Capps, and #4 Matt Hagan. Going all the way down tthe list to #7 Alexis DeJoria, who is 208 points behind, but with the 50% bonus points at the U.S. Nationals, could close that gap if she can turn on more win lights, and the leader(s) falter. PRO STOCK has KB-Titan teammates Dallas Glenn #1, and Greg Anderson #2 barely one round win apart. Below them are two contenders, #3 Greg Stanfield and #4 Matt Hartford, both 157 points behind Glenn and both capable of closing in on the leaders if they have any early round exits. Below them no one has any hope of catching the leaders.

There's much more to come, starting with the Top Alcohol classes, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. One final note for today is the surprise entry of Krista Baldwin, in her second appearance of the season, but the bigger surprise is that she's driving Ron Smith's Washington state-based car. He only brings the car to one race (Northwest Nationals) each year, but usually qualifies for eliminations. He was planning to put Kim Parker (longtime A/Fuel dragster racer) in the car last year but lack of time to get her license upgraded kiboshed that attempt. It will be interesting to see what Ms. Baldwin can do in the Gus Foster-tuned entry.

The latest update as of July 4, 2026

HAPPY July 4th to all my American friends
HAPPY BIRTHDAY U.S.A.

July 4, 1776 - July 4, 2026 - 250 YEARS

The latest update as of July 2, 2026

IHRA Announces Major Changes to the Remainder of the 2026 Season

The International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) has announced significant revisions to its 2026 drag racing schedule, making the difficult decision to cancel four planned national events as the organization continues investing in major facility upgrades and the long-term future of the series.The affected events at Darana Dragway, (Milan, Michigan), Empire Dragway, Darana-Heartland Motorsports Park, and Atlanta Dragway have all been removed from the 2026 calendar.

The revised 2026 IHRA schedule will now feature three marquee events:

August 13-15 - Dragway 42 (West Salem, Ohio) - IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series
September 10-13 - Darana Raceway at Maple Grove Park (Mohnton, Pennsylvania) - IHRA Triple Crown x2
October 8-10 - Darana Motorsports Park (Benson, North Carolina) - IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series Finals

IHRA is back in the headlines, and once again the rumors are flying

On Tuesday Racing Pro Media posted on their Facebook page, a synopsis of what's happening with the IHRA in light of their recent moves. For the full post, check out Rumors or Just Skepticism. What follows is the opening paragraph of their post.

The moment IHRA announced another round of schedule revisions and event cancellations, social media immediately exploded with speculation. The same questions surfaced almost instantly:

"Are they selling the tracks?"
"Is a data center coming?"
"What's really going on?"

Here's the reality..Right now, those are still rumors.

Despite what the "keyboard kommandos" might say, I'm willing to give the IHRA the benfit of the doubt.... until they start cancelling any more events, or the season championship payouts. It's obvious that they're spending far more money than can be supported without some serious attendance numbers or event and series sponsors. The next test of the association will be the Dragway 42 race, scheduled for mid-August. If that one is cancelled then the writing of the future of IHRA could truly be on the wall... and the windows... and the doors.

If that event does go on as scheduled, then we'll have a chance to take a few deep breaths before the Triple Crown doubleheader at Maple Grove in mid-September. And if one of the winners of the first Triple Crown race can pull off the hat-trick and sweep all three races... then we'll wait with bated breath to see the $1,000,000 payout. If that suddenly evaporates, then the book could be closed on Daryl Cuttell's International Hot Rod Association.

As always, stay tuned for further developments.

The latest update as of July 1, 2026

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!

July 1, 1867 - July 1, 2026 - 159 YEARS